A Note on Baseball Announcers

As a subscriber to MLB.tv, I get the broadcasters of the opponent’s team for every Phillies road game.  Among the things I’ve learned from listening to the other broadcast teams around the league is this: Phillie fans are lucky to have Chris Wheeler.  I was never a huge Wheeler fan.  He was in the shadow of Harry Kalas, of course.  And way back when we had Whitey Ashburn calling games, Wheeler just seemed like an unnecessary third wheel.  He didn’t have Harry’s baritone.  He didn’t have Whitey’s experience (he never played the game, let alone had a Hall of Fame career).  It seemed like he just didn’t bring anything to the table.

But Wheeler has gotten a lot better.  I’ve always been of the mind-set that color analysts should be someone who played or coached in the sport they’re announcing.  Wheels has changed my mind.  You might not love his personality (I actually don’t), but the knowledge he brings to a broadcast, combined with his skill in conveying that knowledge and knowing what the viewer needs to hear, is fantastic.

This is something you can’t fully appreciate until you’ve listened to the other announcers around the league.  The majority of color men basically fall into two categories.  First, there are the guys that get the job done but are really boring, only touch the surface of what’s happening in the game, and basically sound exactly like 70% of the other color men out there.  The other type of guy is completely incompetent, and only bearable at all because you’re waiting to hear what ridiculously dumb thing they’ll say next.

Recently fired Nationals color man, Rob Dibble, falls into the latter category.  You may remember Dibble from his years as a “Nasty Boy” with the Reds, who helped them win the ’90 World Series, and who apparently had some sort of interesting personality.  You may also remember him as an incompetent analyst for Baseball Tonight on ESPN for a number of years.  Well, the level of awfulness he brought to Nationals broadcasts was something to behold.

He constantly acted like the Nationals were one of the best teams in baseball.  During an April series against the Phillies this year, he was talking about how the Phils’ hitters really work counts and wear out opposing pitchers, then he says, “Just like our hitters do to opposing pitchers.”  Uh, yeah, the only difference being that the Nats ranked 22nd in baseball in runs scored in ’09, while the Phils were 4th.  Another minor difference being that the Nats lost 205 games in ’08-’09, while the Phils were NL Champs both years.

In that same series he talked about Jason Marquis like he was a perennial All-Star, and claimed that it would be so great for the Nats young pitchers to “watch and emulate” him all year.  Too bad Marquis has a 4.56 career ERA, and a 8.13 ERA in just 8 starts this year.  Hopefully the Nats pitchers have been watching him very closely.  He also compared Nats SS Ian Desmond to Alex Rodriguez.  The only difference there being that, when A-Rod was the same age as Desmond is now, he had 189 career homers and 133 stolen bases, while Desmond has 13 and 15, respectively.  But why let facts get in the way of delusional conjecture?

So, it was with a certain amount of joy that I read about Dibble being fired a couple weeks ago, for saying that Stephen Strasburg should “suck it up” and “stop crying” about his arm pain.  Also, check out Dibble’s reaction a few weeks ago to spotting two women at a Nats game.  I’m sure the Nats were just looking for a reason to give him the axe, and he provided it with those Strasburg comments.  However, before he disappears completely, I’d like to welcome him into the BSB Broadcaster’s Hall of Shame.

It's 2010, Mr. Scully

And one further note on announcing.  The Phils’ series in LA a couple weeks ago gave me a chance to hear the legendary Vin Scully call the games.  He’s the only announcer I know that does the whole game by himself, and listening to him makes you feel like you’re watching a game from 50 years ago.  He comes to each game with so much information about the players.  But, I think he might be starting to lose it a little bit.  On two separate occasions in the series, he claimed that Carlos Ruiz is the only hitter to ever pinch-hit for Johnny Bench!  Now, a Google search reveals that the only player to ever pinch-hit for Bench was actually a player named Chico Ruiz, in 1967.  So, it’s not an entirely insane mistake.  BUT, Johnny Bench last played in 1983, when Carlos was 4-years-old.  Carlos’s ML debut came in 2006, a mere 23 years after Bench’s last game.!